Disneyland opened its doors on July 17, 1955. The theme park was the first of its kind–an impossible sort of place no one expected to stay open for long, much less succeed. Like John Hammond mentioned in Jurassic Park, the park had struggles when it opened. Most memorably, the asphalt wasn’t completely dry and high heels worn by female attendees (Crocs were not in fashion in the ’50s) sunk into the pavement. Restaurants and kiosks ran out of food and beverages, rides broke down, water fountains were inoperable–in short, the park’s first showing to the world didn’t go as planned. Still, none of these issues stopped the world from realizing that Disneyland was special. Magical, even.

The park is celebrating its 60th anniversary for the rest of the year, but on its actual birthday on July 17, they piled on the pixie dust. They handed out special guide maps at the park and offered limited merchandise, and online, they turned back the clock.

The official Disneyland Twitter feed traveled to 1955 and live-tweeted images and videos from opening day as though they were happening now. They shared some images I hadn’t see before, and it was a delight to watch the day unfold as cars and crowds flowed into the park and Walt gave his memorable opening day speech. These are some of the highlights:

]]>http://nerdist.com/relive-disneylands-opening-day/feed/0Directors Cuts: Robert Stevenson, One of Disney’s Go-Toshttp://nerdist.com/directors-cuts-robert-stevenson-one-of-disneys-go-tos/
http://nerdist.com/directors-cuts-robert-stevenson-one-of-disneys-go-tos/#commentsWed, 20 May 2015 00:30:55 +0000http://nerdist.com/?p=255058There was a time in Hollywood history when the producer, or the Movie Mogul, was the name above the title of a movie. David O. Selznick, Jack Warner, and Louis B. Mayer are examples of studio heads who flexed a great deal of creative control over the films they produced, and their names were always large on the poster. But, unarguably, the most long-lasting of these was Walt Disney, who I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of once or twice. His name was and remains the reason a lot of people went and saw family films and animated features for the past nearly 80 years. In his lifetime, he produced a staggering 657 films, television productions, shorts, and documentaries. He even directed 120 things, but those were all Silly Symphonies, short, music-filled animations from 1921-1935.

But his name remained the auteurist staple for everything he produced, but he didn’t direct any of the animated features himself, nor did he direct any of the live action fare that became so prominent in the ’50s and ’60s. But someone had to direct them, right? Many directors worked for Disney during this time, and one of the most prominent and whose work is especially beloved, whether his name is very known or not, is Robert Stevenson, the English director who has 60 directing film and TV credits to his name between 1932 and 1976. Not all of those were for Disney, of course, but the ones he did do for the House of Mouse are among the studio’s most magical, technologically complex, and indelible. Here are but a few of my favorites.

Old Yeller (1957)
Is there a more rips your heart out than Old Yeller? The story of a kid in the 1800s who brings home a big, yellow dog that the boy and his family love, all the way until it gets rabies and has to be put down. It’s the saddest ending of a movie of all time, and one that parents (such as Phoebe Buffay’s mother) refused to let their kids see. But, besides the unbelievable downer of a finale, this is a solid children/family adventure movie featuring a lot of the stock company of Disney actors, like Fess Parker, Tommy Kirk, and Kevin Corcoran. The Rifleman himself, Chuck Connors, also makes an appearance. This was Stevenson’s second production for Disney and would be perhaps his most straightforward.

Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959)
This is a movie you can’t escape on or around St. Patrick’s Day, same with radios playing that stupid Unicorn song. At any rate, this was Stevenson’s first foray with Disney into the realm of the magical. Here, the elderly tinker Darby O’Gill finds and catches the King of the Leprechauns and is granted three wishes. Naturally, the king is a real trickster. Along the way, Darby’s attractive young daughter makes eyes at the young and studly Sean Connery whilst a town bully is all naw dawg. Not only does this movie feature an underground kingdom of leprechauns, all of whom are extra tiny through early blue screen-type effects, but it also has a terrifying spectre in the form of the banshee, who looks like a negative-space grim reaper in a ghostly horse and buggy. This movie is a true delight.

The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)
As much as the 1990s remake sort of ruined the concept (all due respect to the great Robin Williams), this was perhaps one of the funniest movies Disney ever produced. It stars the always brilliant Fred MacMurray (right after playing a hateful and despicable character in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment) as the jovial titular mad scientist who invents a substance which he calls Flying Rubber, or ‘Flubber’ for short. Naturally, it gets him and the town in which he teaches at the college into a whole lot of trouble. One might even say “shenanigans.” If one were so inclined to do that, of course. This again features Stevenson employing superimposition effects, which blend a little bit better in black and white. This one had a sequel in 1963 which Stevenson also directed called Son of Flubber/

Mary Poppins (1964)
Easily Stevenson’s best film, and maybe even the best live-action movie Disney ever produced. Surely you’ve seen this movie, and you probably even have seen Saving Mr. Banks which fictionalizes the making of that movie, and really downplays (if not completely excises) Stevenson’s role in that production. Granted, the writing of the movie had more of the drama, but Stevenson’s gorgeous color scheme (kudos to cinematographer Edward Colman and the whole art department) and truly astonishing combination of live action and animation were integral to the film’s success and it really feeling like a storybook come to life. This was one of the movies that I’d always put on when I was home sick in elementary school. It’s long and can take away your woes. The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Actress Julie Andrews, Best Special Effects, Best Film Editing, and two music awards for Richard and Robert Sherman. It was nominated for a further eight awards, including one for Best Picture and Best Director for Stevenson, his only such nomination. The movie lost out to another big movie musical, My Fair Lady, which gave Oscars to producer Jack Warner and director George Cukor.

The Love Bug (1968)
This is one that I think probably wouldn’t hold up if I watched it today (I could be entirely wrong), but it holds a place with me from childhood. Just a silly romp, but with some impressive effects, which were Stevenson’s trademark at this point. This tells the improbably story of a team of race car drivers, played by Dean Jones, Buddy Hackett, and Michele Lee, who begin winning races with, of all things, a Volkswagen Beetle. But, as is pretty common for these types of things, the Beetle, nicknamed Herbie, has a mind of his own. This movie proved so popular that it spawned a series of increasingly ludicrous adventures, including Herbie Rides Again which Stevenson also directed, in 1974.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
Probably my second favorite of Stevenson’s films, and a thematic successor to Mary Poppins, this film stars another iconic British stage and screen actress, Angela Lansbury, who plays a witch attempting to get certified in the craft. She encounters three young street kids and takes them on strange adventures along to cartoon worlds like the Island of Naboombu, and uses Substitutiary Locomotion on suits of armor and things to fight off an invasion by the Nazis during WWII. Songs were again written by the Sherman brothers and they’re just as catchy. Incredibly effects-heavy, this movie, and it was honored with the Best Special Effects Oscar in 1972.

Stevenson made, obviously, quite a few other films for Disney and many, many before in his long career. I’m willing to bet most of you had never heard of him, but you’ve certainly seen his work. These are my favorites, but let me know if you have other ones you love below. (I know my mom loves The Gnome-Mobile.)

]]>http://nerdist.com/directors-cuts-robert-stevenson-one-of-disneys-go-tos/feed/0The Disney Logo: A Brief History of Its Evolution and Variationshttp://nerdist.com/the-disney-logo-a-brief-history-of-its-evolution-and-variations/
http://nerdist.com/the-disney-logo-a-brief-history-of-its-evolution-and-variations/#commentsSat, 28 Mar 2015 15:00:16 +0000http://nerdist.com/?p=235042It’s one of the most iconic opening credit logos of our time, that magical Disney logo. Every man, woman, and child can spot that castle and arced shooting star a mile away and know exactly by whom the movie was made, and ergo the quality of the film they’re about to watch. The sweeping instrumental version of “When You Wish Upon A Star” can even clue you in if you’re not facing the television set. It’s about as solid as branding goes and has yet to lose its charm after all these years. Ethan Jones created this decades-spanning retrospective:

The logo many of us remember, in its varying shades of blue with some white font, was introduced to moviegoers in 1985 alongside The Black Cauldron and was left largely unchanged for a decade. As someone who was born in ’85, I’ve never known a world where that logo didn’t precede a brand new Disney film. It wasn’t until 1995’s Toy Story, the instant classic resulted from the union of Pixar and Disney, that the logo was swapped out for something more thematic to the feature it introduced. This one featured for the first time a computer-animated castle, as well as the first time that castle was colored something other than light blue.

Soon after, more Disney movies began to get their own unique logo animation, with the now-nostalgic original lined castle and “Walt Disney Pictures” tag being used as a standard across all other movies. For instance, as you can see in the video above, Snow Dogs added some icicles to the arc. [Sidebar: As a fan of 30 Rock, I have to wonder what the logo that accompanies 5now Dog5 would look like. “Five-now-dog-five. Five-now-dog-five!”]

In 2006’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest “logo classic” was officially retired and “logo modern” was introduced. It was a fully computer-generated animation with the camera panning backward over lush kingdom scenery and then the top of the castle, eventually pulling back to reveal the full logo. For 25 seconds worth of animation, it was pretty damn magical in its debut. Since 2006, all variations have spawned from this version with only one major change to the logo: the wording. 2011 saw the company drop “Walt” and “Pictures” from the title (which I’m sure had him turning in his cryogenic chamber) leaving “Disney” as the sole moniker. The one variation that actually struck me as I watched it unfold in theaters was the silhouette of the logo castle in 2014’s Maleficent. The Angelina Jolie-led movie featured what I believe is an entirely different castle structure to the logo, as most others are very similar silhouettes. Granted, it could’ve just been a camera rotation trick to make it appear like the film’s unique castle. Either way, it’s a fun little quirk in a beautiful evolution of an iconic logo.

]]>http://nerdist.com/the-disney-logo-a-brief-history-of-its-evolution-and-variations/feed/0Preview Shanghai Disneyland’s PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: BATTLE FOR THE SUNKEN TREASURE Ridehttp://nerdist.com/preview-shanghai-disneylands-pirates-of-the-caribbean-battle-for-the-sunken-treasure-ride/
http://nerdist.com/preview-shanghai-disneylands-pirates-of-the-caribbean-battle-for-the-sunken-treasure-ride/#commentsWed, 04 Feb 2015 21:00:13 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=224084Before it was a multi-billion dollar movie franchise, the Pirates of the Caribbean was a state of the art attraction at Disneyland, one of the last rides that Walt Disney himself oversaw personally before his death in 1966. Although the animatronics might be dated now, you’ll still be hard pressed to find a ride with as much attention to detail and thoughtful world-building going on as the original Pirates. In terms of what they call “dark rides”, it has yet to be topped. (And good luck finding a ride that lasts longer than five minutes these days–the original Anaheim park Pirates clocks in at almost fifteen.)

But now Disney is looking to try, with an all-new iteration of the beloved ride called Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure, set to open at Shanghai Disneyland in 2016. (It was recently announced that the new Shanghai park’s opening has been delayed from its original late 2015 opening date by Disney CEO Bob Iger.) The new attraction will be located in the park’s Treasure Cove land, a whole land seemingly built around the Pirates movie franchise.

The new attraction will offer “a combination of new technology and innovation and will take guests on a pirate adventure with Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Davy Jones, providing an experience unlike anything else in the world.” It appears that the new Pirates will also use the omni-mover boat ride technology, which was patented a few years ago by Walt Disney Imagineering. Check out some of the concept art and behind-the-scenes-pictures in the gallery below:

]]>http://nerdist.com/preview-shanghai-disneylands-pirates-of-the-caribbean-battle-for-the-sunken-treasure-ride/feed/1Will Disney’s INTO THE WOODS Be TOO Kid Friendly?http://nerdist.com/will-disneys-into-the-woods-be-too-kid-friendly/
http://nerdist.com/will-disneys-into-the-woods-be-too-kid-friendly/#commentsFri, 20 Jun 2014 00:15:28 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=159934Once upon a time Walt Disney was known for being unafraid to scare the bejeezus out of little kids. In films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Fantasia, the animation pioneer and the studio he created conjured up moments that wouldn’t be all that out of place in a horror movie. But since that Golden Age of the ’30s and ’40s, Disney has come to be known for a kind of family entertainment that, with few exceptions, is nightmare free. Unfortunately, that means the brand is making its mark on the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s beloved Broadway musical Into the Woods.

Variety reports that “to make the pic more family-friendly, Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) will not die. The film will also be less sexual as Cinderella’s Prince (Chris Pine) won’t sleep with the Baker’s Wife (Emily Blunt) and the relationship between Big Bad Wolf (Johnny Depp) and Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) won’t be sexually laced.”

What’s particularly distressing to this longtime Sondheim fan, however, is that the composer himself, recently speaking before a group of high school drama teachers, has said, “You will find in the movie that Rapunzel does not get killed and the prince does not sleep with the [Baker’s Wife] … You know, if I were a Disney executive, I probably would say the same thing… Censorship is part of our puritanical ethics… There has to be a point at which you don’t compromise anymore, but that may mean that you won’t get anyone to sell your painting or perform your musical. You have to deal with reality.”

It’s uncertain how these plot changes will affect the songs buoyed by the excised moments. But Variety states that “the song ‘Any Moment’ performed during Prince Charming and the Baker’s Wife’s tryst will ‘probably’ be cut. It’s unclear what will happen to ‘Lament,’ which the Witch (Meryl Streep) sings after Rapunzel dies, and ‘Moments in the Woods,’ which the Baker’s Wife’s belts out after the Prince leaves. The film will feature two new songs that Sondheim penned with James Lapine.”

What do you think, Sondheim fans? Will these changes ruin Into the Woods or merely shape it into a form different from the one we know?

]]>http://nerdist.com/will-disneys-into-the-woods-be-too-kid-friendly/feed/10Review: SAVING MR. BANKShttp://nerdist.com/review-saving-mr-banks/
http://nerdist.com/review-saving-mr-banks/#commentsFri, 27 Dec 2013 18:00:58 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=103442The short review: Although it is about 30 minutes too long and a bit by the numbers, Saving Mr. Banks offers some splendid performances, has undeniable charm, and is one of the best cinematic presents to unwrap this holiday season.

The long review: While much to do has been made over how Saving Mr. Banks presents a gussied up, less-than-accurate version of P.L. Travers and her relationship with Walt Disney, this review won’t be focusing on that. For a well-written, studied takedown of the film, I wholeheartedly recommend reading Amy Nicholson’s review at L.A. Weekly. In the meantime, I’m going to review the film on its own merits based on my knowledge, emotional response, and state of mind when I first saw it.

Do you smell that? Those aren’t chestnuts roasting on an open fire. That’s the smell of fresh Oscar bait, cooling on the window sill, waiting for eager audiences and Academy voters to catch its scent and follow it like a siren song off the gangplank and into the ever-deepening ocean of the cult of Disney. Everything about Saving Mr. Banks‘ marketing smacks of making a push to garner awards season nominations for its two leads, Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as the indefatigable P.L. Travers. That isn’t a slight against the film; just its inexorable marketing campaign. It’s actually quite deserving of the buzz it has received thus far. In fact, it’s quite good.

Director John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks is an exceedingly likable, devilishly charming little film that gives us an insider view of the tumultuous process Walt Disney went through in order to fulfill a promise he’d made to his daughters some twenty years prior to turn Mary Poppins into a feature film. But for all Hanks’ charisma and magnetic screen presence, the story isn’t about Walt Disney; it is about P.L. Travers, the brains behind Poppins, and her intense, deeply complex personal relationship with the character that she just couldn’t seem to let go.

Much like how you know going into Titanic that the boat sinks at the end, you know that Walt gets his way and Mary Poppins becomes a feature film in 1964. If this came as a spoiler to you, please log off right now and consider what you’ve done with your life that lead you to this point without that knowledge. The challenge, as I’ve mentioned with films like Captain Phillips, is in making the journey an exciting one, one that we as viewers will want to embark upon for two-plus hours when we already know the conclusion is foregone. Screenwriter Kelly Marcel, who was brought in to work on a preexisting script from Sue Smith, keeps the action moving by splitting our focus between the past and present, P.L. Travers’ fateful two-week trip to Burbank, CA where Walt tried everything in his power to woo her and Travers’ youth spent in the magical realist paradise that is the Australian countryside and the father she idealized (Colin Farrell).

In a film that runs as excessively long as Saving Mr. Banks (we get it — they make Mary Poppins into a movie), any change of scenery is a welcome change of pace. For my money, the film’s length is its greatest sin, although it teeters on the edge of getting overly sentimental much like this cockatoo on the precipice of a chocolate fondue fountain. Silly similies aside, the film’s tone – a constant, gradual emotional crescendo – wears on the viewer. In a column in the Los Angeles Times, Marcel said, “With Banks, there was always a fear that the film would be overly sentimental, but John pulled us back from the edge every time.” If he pulled them back from the edge, then I hesitate to gaze into the abyss at the mushy pile of emotional overindulgence lying at the cliff’s bottom. The film earns many of its emotional peaks and valleys, but at times, particularly toward the end, it had my rolling my eyes and mouthing, “get on with it”.

I would be remiss in my duties if I did not call special attention to Emma Thompson and her dynamite portrayal of Travers. Historical accuracy aside, Thompson manages to make this staid, priggish prickly pear of a character into a three-dimensional, emotionally grounded, sympathetic figure. Say what you will about the film’s myriad flashbacks – its best sequences lie in Thompson trying to make her peace with the past in the modern day, and in particular, her rapturously grumpy encounters with the easy-breezy “California Livin'” lifestyle embodied by Walt Disney and his crew in the sunny, comparative paradise of Los Angeles.

Hanks, too, is worthy of praise, but the film’s supporting players – Paul Giamatti’s relentlessly peppy chauffeur, B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman’s Sherman Brothers, Bradley Whitford’s hapless Don DaGradi, to name a few – are what elevates Saving Mr. Banks from good to great and makes it a must see this holiday season, especially for fans of Disney and those curious about what a slice of development hell looks like.

If you can can swallow the sugarcoated version of history and take it at face value, Saving Mr. Banks is a wonderful addition to Disney’s live action oeuvre. Go ahead and put on those rose-colored glasses and let Hancock’s vision of the Disney of yesteryear and the long, winding road to take Mary Poppins from children’s book to cinematic classic lift you up and away. It may be lengthy, but Saving Mr. Banks is most assuredly a journey worth embarking upon, thanks in no small part to Emma Thompson’s studied, lived-in performance and a stellar supporting cast to raise her up over their heads and on to the east wind.

Did you see the film? Let us know what you thought in the quemments below.

]]>http://nerdist.com/review-saving-mr-banks/feed/1710 Things I Learned About Disney’s FROZENhttp://nerdist.com/10-things-i-learned-about-disneys-frozen/
http://nerdist.com/10-things-i-learned-about-disneys-frozen/#commentsFri, 11 Oct 2013 20:00:38 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=92378At a recent early press day at Disney’s Animation Studios in Burbank, some of us were able to watch clips of Disney’s new 3D animated feature, Frozen, the trailer for which was released a few weeks ago, as well as get mini-tutorials on how the various and plentiful groups of people did what they needed to do to make this film. We were also able to see the entirety of the short film that will precede the feature, Get a Horse, starring Mickey Mouse and company. It was quite an educational day. Here are some of the interesting things I learned:

1. The songs for the film were written by the same people who did The Book of Mormon

– Disney called upon Robert Lopez, Tony Award-winner for Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon, and his wife Kristen to write the songs for Frozen, just as they did for Winnie the Pooh in 2011.

2. Animators are responsible for most of the characters’ performances

– This one should have been a no-brainer, but it never really occurred to me. While the voice actors are the ones who do press and are “the face” of animated movies, character animators spend hundreds of man hours shaping every movement, twitch, and gesture of their characters. Some use sketches to get the movements just right; others film themselves acting along with the voice track to ensure the most accurate visual representation of the line. It’s a “wowzers” type of process.

3. The characters and story changed drastically over the four years it took to make the movie

– Unlike live-action movie making, the story and scripting phase of an animated feature is almost never done. It goes through dozens of permutations and story tweaks. Sometimes, whole characters are rewritten, often after the voice actors have finished their initial recording sessions. In the case of Frozen, which was loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, the character of Elsa was initially the out-and-out villain of the piece, but slowly she changed to be much more sympathetic and the story became about her sister Anna trying to save her rather than defeat her.

4. The design team pined for the fjords.

– As this was based on literature from Scandinavia, the art and design team took a pilgrimage to Norway to study everything from their architecture and traditional clothing to the way the landscape looks, especially the fjords, which are giant sheer ice cliffs. They designed Frozen‘s magical kingdom to be nestled within a fjord for added dynamism.

5. Ice

– Another thing the art and design team did was look at the way light refracts through ice, seeing as Elsa’s ice castle was a main focal point of the movie. Whilst in Norway, they spent considerable time at a real working ice hotel to get a sense of what different shapes and patterns can exist within and looking through ice. This was then given to the effects team to create the distinct look of the these shots.

6. Snow

– Snow is another huge part of the movie. Obviously, the conceit is that the Ice Queen Elsa makes it winter in the summertime, so the ground is covered in snow and it blows in the wind and things like that. The effects team on Frozen were unsatisfied with the way existing programs had snow moving, saying it looked too much like foam packing peanuts when characters trudged through it. A program was built specifically for this movie that changed the consistency of the snow to better reflect real life and the different types of snow. For instance, if it’s wetter, denser snow, it moves differently when characters walk through it than more powdery snow. The result is the most accurate computer-generated depiction of snow ever on screen.

7. Hair

– In the same way that a special program was designed for snow, a new program called Tonic was created for characters’ hair to make it thicker and act more like a sculpture that moves rather than individual strands, unless specifically asked to do that. The typical human head has around 100,000 individual hairs on their head (some of us have considerably fewer), but Elsa has 420,000 individual hairs, to allow for better shape and range of movement.

8. Camera Techniques‘

– You might not think cameras are even a factor in digitally animated movies, and you’d be wrong about that. While, yes, a traditional film or video camera isn’t needed, the act of moving the virtual camera is of utmost importance. The animators can move the virtual camera anywhere they want to capture the programmed movements of a scene. We were shown a tool, which looks basically like a shoulder-mount rig, but instead of an actual camera on it, there’s a bunch of sensors and a monitor. Anywhere you move this within the designated area within the sensor-filled space, the virtual camera picks it up. I was given the opportunity to test this out and, like with a real camera, move to follow the action, in this case of the lead character Kristoff on the back of his trusted reindeer Sven running across a frozen lake. This technique adds the “human element,” jostling and slight imperfections, that can make even the most cartoonish animation look more realistic. It’s called “verisimilitude,” people!

9. The short, Get a Horse! features a mix of 2D and 3D animation

– Preceding Frozen in theaters will be the incredibly impressive and fun animated short, Get a Horse, featuring Mickey Mouse in the style and manner he was drawn in the beginning – in black and white, hand-drawn frames. At a certain point in the short, Mickey, after being kicked by Peg-Leg Pete, flies through the screen in the theater and into the “real world” in which he’s in color and in three dimensions. What follows is a chase scene in and out of the cartoon being projected. This was done by actually mixing hand drawn animation (done by the legendary Eric Goldberg) and computer-generated animation that still tries to ape the look and feel of the 2D counterpart. It’s an absolutely brilliant thing to watch. Enjoy your forthcoming Best Animated Short Oscar, director Lauren McMullan.

10. Mickey Mouse in Get a Horse! is performed entirely by Walt Disney

– The old Mickey Mouse cartoons to which the short is paying homage all featured the man himself, Walt Disney, doing the voice of Mickey Mouse. McMullan and producer Dorothy McKim scoured through every one they could in the archives to extract bits of dialogue recorded at the time so that every line spoken by Mickey in the new short is actually performed by Walt. It was the same for Pete and Minnie, though other voice actors were used to pad out a bit of them. Mickey, though, is all Disney.

—

You can see all of this amazing animated craftsmanship when Frozen and Get a Horse! are released in theaters on Wednesday, November 27th, 2013.

Oh, friends, prepare yourselves to be delighted. The first trailer for the film version of the true story of when Walt Disney tried to convince Mrs. P.L. Travers to let him adapt Mary Poppins has arrived like a nanny in the wind. In Saving Mr. Banks, Disney (Tom Hanks) and Travers (Emma Thompson) could not be more dissimilar, but they are forced to eventually see eye to eye on the project, which of course went on to be one of Walt Disney Pictures’ biggest hits, being nominated for 13 Oscars and winning 5.

A good portion of it was actually filmed IN Disneyland, and that, in itself, makes it worth seeing, but I’m particularly pleased with Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak as the Sherman Brothers, who won two Oscars for the movie. Saving Mr. Banks has a plum December 13th release date, and I, for one, am very excited to see it.

What do you think? Are you enchanted by seeing Disney days of yore? Tell us in the comments below!